Norton flouting court on Pronghorn protection, Defenders charges

Sonoran Pronghorn Faces Imminent Extinction; Public Grazing, Military Activities, Drought Implicated

(08/05/2002) - WASHINGTON -- Interior Secretary Gale Norton has callously ignored a court order requiring her department to take clear steps to protect Arizona's Sonoran pronghorn, which biologists estimate is down to 50-80 individual animals, from extinction, according a motion filed today by Defenders of Wildlife the U.S. District Court. The sub-species' habitat has been fragmented by grazing allotments, a military bombing range, and activities by at least seven federal agencies, leaving it unable to respond to the ongoing drought gripping the desert region.

Trapped in fragmented habitat, the Sonoran pronghorn has been hard hit by recent drought. Almost all of this year's fawns have died, according to the Arizona Fish & Wildlife Department, along with four out of the six adults that had been fitted with radio collars. State wildlife biologists estimate that the population has fallen to just 50-80 animals, from as many as 250 a few years ago.

"Deserts go through droughts. But for the Sonoran pronghorn, this particular drought is even worse than usual because the animal's habitat is so badly cut up by public grazing, military activities, and damage from ill-advised water management," said William Snape, vice president for law and litigation at Defenders of Wildlife.

"While the Fish and Wildlife Service has acknowledged that these animals are in real trouble -- and that more than just the weather is to blame -- it's tough to take them seriously when Secretary Norton is thumbing her nose at steps the court has ordered her to take."

In February, 2001, U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle issued a landmark ruling in a suit brought by Defenders of Wildlife and an Arizona activist, Paul Huddy, requiring Secretary Norton to analyze the cumulative impact of the activities of various federal agencies -- including the Border Patrol, Bureau of Land Management, the Park Service, and the Fish and Wildlife Service -- is harming the animal, and whether any of these activities should be curtailed.

Defenders is asking the judge to enforce her previous court order, and furthermore requesting the removal of cattle now grazing on 90,000 acres of federal grazing allotments, and that the government take down fences around the allotments that impede the pronghorns search for water and forage.

Over a decade ago, the U.S. General Accounting Office questioned the efficacy of this "hot desert" grazing because of the bad economics and ecological damage wrought by such practices.

"Further delay by Secretary Norton could doom this magnificent species," Snape said. "It's time for her department's actions to catch up to its rhetoric on the Sonoran pronghorn."

Defenders of Wildlife is represented by Howard Crystal and Kathy Meyer of the Washington, D.C. law firm of Meyer and Glitzenstein.

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Contact(s):

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